Over the years physical exercise has grown in popularity to improve the health and physical appearance of a person and also to reduce stress. There are a many forms of physical exercise that may be employed by a person such as: strength training, aerobics, calisthenics, and plyometrics to name a few. A common strength training exercise is the traditional push-up. In performing a push-up, a user assumes a prone position, and lifts the body using the arms. Through this exercise, the weight of the body serves as the main source of resistance to the muscles, particularly the pectoralis muscles, which are used in performing the push-up. However, greater muscle training efficiency may be obtained by activating additional muscle groups while performing the push-up. This is accomplished by modifying the standard up-down motion of the push-up to include various secondary movements such as: leg raises, one-armed push-ups, various hand positions, hip raises and the like. By using such modifications, the user activates various secondary muscle groups, which in turn significantly increase the effectiveness of the physical exercise.
Additionally, exercise efficiency can be further enhanced by random activation of these secondary muscle groups, which induces muscle confusion. It is known that performing the same exercise over and over cause the human body to adapt to these exercise motions and thereby causing a diminishing return by performing the same exercise repeatedly. Consequently, by employing muscle confusion that randomly activates various secondary muscle groups during a particular exercise, the human body is less likely to adapt to the exercise motions and thus receives greater benefit from the exercise.
There are several known devices in the prior art that seek to enhance the overall effectiveness of performing various exercises and in particular the traditional push-up. These devices commonly seek to facilitate one or more secondary motions, which in turn activate additional muscle groups during the core exercise. One known solution provides a platform having base member and a handle member that rotate with respect to each other along a vertical axis. The base member has a non-slip surface that engages a floor surface and prevents the device sliding along the floor. While this known solution is somewhat useful, it presents substantial drawbacks. Firstly, this device only permits the handle member to rotate which in turn allows the arms of a user to twist during the push-up. Although this does engage some secondary muscle groups, this rotation of the hand position generally focuses on the smaller muscles of the forearm and upper arm. Secondly, this device does not permit lateral motion of the device along the floor surface and thereby fails to activate many secondary muscle groups in the shoulders, chest, and back of a person during the exercise motion.
Another known solution provides an exercising device that includes a platform and a number of peripherally spaced caster wheels underneath the platform, for supporting a limb of a user on or against a supporting surface while permitting movement of the limb in any direction along the supporting surface. The platform has a lower body part that carries the caster wheels, and a removable upper part, which can be removed or inverted to change the configuration of the upper surface of the platform. Straps are provided to secure the device to the limb of a user. While this known solution is somewhat useful, it presents substantial drawbacks. To begin, the device uses a plurality of caster wheels that must be pushed or pulled to orientate each caster in the same direction. Then when a directional change is desired, the user must apply additional force to get the plurality of casters change direction and align in the new direction. This additional force requirement induces an inconsistency in the exercise motion. Further, this device does not facilitate a smooth uniform exercise motion because the multiple casters must realign prior to changing direction. Next, this device employs casters having a wheel/ball member that is supported by thru axle coupled to the frame of the caster. This configuration is likely to have increased axle friction under load and thus does not facilitate free motion.
Various exercise devices are known that employ a plurality of ball and cup-type members coupled to a bottom surface of the device and while somewhat useful these known solutions present substantial drawbacks. In these known solutions, there is generally provided a plurality of ball members that are rotationally coupled into a hemispherical cup formed within a housing member. The ball members are free to rotate in any direction with respect to the hemispherical cup. These known solutions, while providing some benefit, have a substantial drawback of increased friction between the ball member and hemispherical cup under load conditions. This type of ball motion assembly has a substantial portion of the ball member surface area in sliding contact with the surface area of the hemispherical cup and thereby restricts the free motion of the ball with respect to the cup under load. Moreover, in these known solutions, as a user increases the load on the device the induced additional friction between the ball and cup prevent the fluid multi-directional movement of the exercise device.
In another known exercise device that provides a hemispherical support frame and a single rigid support ball mounted to the support frame with a plurality of smaller low-friction ball bearings disposed in between the support ball and the support frame such that the support ball is freely rotatable in any direction. While this known solution is somewhat useful, it presents substantial drawbacks. Most significantly, this device only provides a single support ball, which causes the hemispherical support frame to be unstable during use. As discussed above, having and exercise device that permits a user to activate secondary muscle groups is advantageous. However, the exercise device must provide a stable platform by which the exercise can be safely performed and which reduces the possibility of injuring the user. Although this known exercise device provides a platform that facilitates fluid multi-directional movement during use, this device inherently presents an increased risk of potential injury to the user. The device has a high center of rotation between the support ball and hemispherical support frame. During use, this high center of rotation is likely to cause an undesired change in direction, due to the instability of the device, which may injure the hand, wrist, foot, or ankle of a user. For example, during a push-up it is beneficial to have the freedom of motion to laterally translate the hand position of the user (i.e., left/right/fore/aft) with respect to the starting position of the hands. It is also beneficial to have the freedom of rotational movement with respect to a vertical axis normal to a supporting floor surface. However, this known device permits a freedom of rotational movement with respect to a horizontal axis parallel to the supporting floor surface. This horizontal freedom of movement causes a twisting/torquing of the wrist joint of the user, which in turn is likely to result in a significant and painful injury to the user. In another example, this known device may be used for hamstring raises where the user places their feet on the hemispherical support frame to exercise their hips, hamstrings and core. As discussed above, this known solution presents a similar risk of injury to the ankle of the user, due to the horizontal freedom of movement, which can induce an undesired twisting/torquing of the ankle joint.
Additionally, the number of rolling support elements, (i.e. wheels) and the shape of the platform can impact the stability of the device. Three points always define a plane. Platform style exercise devices having a single roller provide no level stability and require that the exercising individual exert excess effort to maintain a stable orientation of the device. Without the extra effort, the device can change the orientation of the limb contacting the device in an undesirable manner. Platforms comprising two wheels introduce a very limited stability along an axis between the two wheels, but remain unstable about a rotational axis defined by the two wheels. Platforms comprising four or more wheels can include one or more wheels that are not coplanar. Therefore, the platform can rock about an axis defined by the two lowest wheels. Regarding the shape of the device, the area defined as a stability region, or a region that is within a boundary defined by contact points of three or more rolling elements ensures that the platform will not flip, and will thus remain in a desire orientation (generally horizontal) during use.
Efforts to provide an omnidirectional exercise platform that overcomes the drawbacks in the prior art have not met with significant success to date. As a result, there is a need in the art for an exercise platform that provides smooth, fluid omnidirectional movement of the platform and concurrently provides a stable platform that reduces the risk of injuring the user.